“It’s O.K.” I wrapped my deadened arms around her. “I’m taking you home.”
Her head dropped onto my shoulder, and I rested mine against it. I held her a moment, then released her. Summoning up memories of religious education from my childhood, I closed my eyes, clasped my hands in front of my chest, and wept quietly as I prayed to God for the life of Andrew Ryan.
35
ONE WEEK LATER I WAS SITTING ON MY PATIO IN CHARLOTTE, thirty-six exam booklets stacked to my right, the thirty-seventh on a lap table in front of me. The sky was Carolina blue, the yard a deep, rich green. In the adjacent magnolia, a mockingbird strove for a personal best.
“Brilliantly average job,” I said, marking a C+ on the blue cover and circling it several times. Birdie looked up, stretched, and slithered from the chaise.
My knee was healing well. The small hairline fracture in my left patella had been nothing compared with the injuries to my psyche. After the terror in Ange Gardien I’d spent two days in Quebec, recoiling at every sound and every shadow, barking dogs in particular. Then I returned to Charlotte to hobble through the remainder of the semester. I filled the days with relentless activity, but the nights were difficult. In the dark my mind loosened, releasing visions the daytime had locked away. Some nights I slept with the lamp on.
The phone rang and I reached for the handset. It was the call I’d been expecting.
“I think the medication is helping.” Her voice went low. “I don’t know anything about bipolar disorder, but the doctor gave me a great deal of material and I am learning. I had never understood her depression. I thought Anna was moody because that’s what her mother said. Sometimes she’d be down, then suddenly she’d be full of energy and feeling good about herself. I didn’t know that was, what is it called . . . ?”
“A manic phase?”
“I’m so glad she’s better.”
“Yes, God be praised. Professor Jeannotte’s death hit her hard. Please, Dr. Brennan, for Anna’s sake, I must know what went on with that woman.”
I took a deep breath. What to say?
“Professor Jeannotte’s troubles stemmed from her love for her brother. Daniel Jeannotte spent his life organizing one cult group after another. Daisy believed he was well intentioned and wrongly scorned by mainstream society. Her career in American academia was compromised following complaints to her university by parents of students she had steered to Daniel’s conferences and workshops. She took a leave from teaching to do research and write, and resurfaced in Canada. For years she continued to be supportive of her brother.
“When Daniel hooked up with Elle, Daisy began to lose confidence. She thought Elle was a psychopath, and a struggle developed between the two women for Daniel’s allegiance. Daisy wanted to protect her brother, but was afraid of something catastrophic.
“Jeannotte knew that Daniel and Elle’s group was active on campus, though the university had tried to drive them off. So when Anna had her encounter with them, Daisy wanted to monitor them through Anna.
“Daisy was never a recruiter for the group. She learned that cult members had infiltrated the counseling center, looking for students to befriend. My sister was recruited that way at a community college in Texas. This agitated Daisy all the more because she feared being blamed because of the episode in her past.”
“Who is this Elle?”
“Her real name is Sylvie Boudrais. What we know is patchy. She’s forty-four, born in Baie Comeau of an Inuit mother and quebecois father. Her mother died when she was fourteen, her father was an alcoholic. The old man beat her regularly and forced her into prostitution when she was fourteen. Sylvie never finished high school, but she tests in the stratosphere for IQ.
“Boudrais disappeared after dropping out of school, then showed up in Quebec City sometime in the mid- seventies offering psychic healing for a moderate fee. She acquired a small following, and eventually became the leader of a group that took up residence in a hunting lodge near Ste-Anne-de-Beaupre. There was constant money pressure, and problems developed because of underaged members. A fourteen-year-old turned up pregnant, and the parents went to the authorities.
“The group disbanded and Boudrais moved on. She did a brief stint with a sect called the Celestial Pathway in Montreal, but left. Like Daniel Jeannotte, she wandered from group to group, turning up in Belgium around 1980, where she preached a combination of shamanism and New Age spiritualism. She established a band of followers, including a very wealthy man named Jacques Guillion.
“Boudrais had met Guillion early through the Celestial Pathway, and saw him as the answer to a group’s cash flow problems. Guillion fell under her spell, and was eventually persuaded to sell his properties and turn over his assets.”
“No one objected?”
“The taxes were paid and Guillion had no family, so no questions arose.”
“In the mid-eighties the group left Belgium for the U.S. They established a commune in Fort Bend County, Texas, and Guillion shuttled back and forth to Europe for several years, probably transferring money. He last entered the U.S. two years ago.”
“What happened to him?” Her voice was small and tremulous.
“The police think he’s buried somewhere on the ranch.”
I heard the swish of fabric.
